A History of Fire Emblem Heroes’ Meta Units Without PRFs 

Reject the meta, embrace using your +10 grail unit from three years ago and occasionally giving them a new inheritable so they can get murdered more comfortably in arena

Seeing clips from trailers where descriptions are only a few lines long is so surreal.

33 speed with brave bow being “high” feels crazy

There was also the staff cavs (especially Nanna) with Flash+ that were used a lot in AR-D for cavlines (again). Also bow cavs like Summer Leonie could use Whitecap bow but that didn't last long.

I liked older times when demotes had value. Now a +10 demote is probably worse than a +1 pref monster

Ah the time of Gen 1, the year Astra was 5 cooldown special, the memories.

PA Inigo was such a goated anti-meta unit in the Reinhardt/BLyn era, miss that time. Berkut's Lance was also so goofy, I remember running Clair as a very anti-dragon tank with it, 0 damage back and forth until she dropped a fat Glacies. Good times.

Summer Corrin with iotes shield seal was elite at baiting and taking out takumi. I wish things were as easy back then 😭

Carrot Bow+ on NY Plumeria. Thank me later sanaki users

i don't think feh would've lived so long if it stayed as simple as it began but i still miss playing that version of the game. having a lot of accessible generic builds was good because it made the sort of "buy in" to pvp modes lower as far as getting good skills but most units now come with what they need when they're intended for those game modes which is sort of another approach to the concept. one thing that was way different was feather income. to make units 5 stars took SOOOOO long... but i don't feel there are many worthwhile units to promote like that anymore, save for the occasional ghb but whenever you decide to you pretty much always can which is nice. also dude i tried so hard to get devoted basket i did 90 pulls on that banner and only got an ascended fjorm :(

I miss these days :(

The Canto inheritable weapons were really good for dancers too btw. Despite dancers not scoring well in Arena, they're a lifesaver in some weeks.

God this was a nostagia trip. I remember getting pissed at stuff like brave bride Cordelia while playing Arena in the middle of 7th grade class

Ayra needs to be brought back to break the meta once more

henry meta you say? thank god i got back into the game lol

Effie had the highest attack stat in the game until Legendary Edelgard. I was extremely late to the Effie party, and +10'd her less than a year ago, only to find that most enemies can just tank damage she deals, and kill her in retaliation, because what good is Hardy Bearing Aegis if they attack twice in a row, or do damage before Aegis procs? She's now my least helpful +10 project, which is saying a lot as a year 1 player :(

Man, I miss books 1 through 3. Where the same still had the sense of strategy and was fun to play. Because back then you fought enemies with clear weaknesses. If you could exploit those weaknesses properly, you would win. Also in years 1 and 2, you did not have that many feathers. We only had 2,000 Hero Merit per unit to start. Before the cap raised over time. It wasn't until 5,000 Hero Merit when you finally could raise a unit from the demote pool to +10 consistently. When you were at 2,000 cap, you essentially waiting for events to get feathers and merge projects were many months into the works. It was essentially easier to +10 a 5 star just because you'd summon on their banner.

Maaaan making me miss the old days of Feh where I didn't need to read a novel every time a new banner drops :'( I remember the feeling the first time I noticed a unit had completely overcome a prfless unit with the same weapon/move type statline. I think it may have been a SoV character beating Laslow. A sad day indeed.

I still use Bride Cordelia to this day. Over the years I've given her updated dancers, but I'm still using a pretty classic build. I do plan on finally giving her some premium stuff after finishing my AHR summons :)

Seeing that Nowi build did bring back a lot of memories to me

Oh my god, I remember these days. This is so nostalgic but also you are making me feel old as well…😅

seeing that ar d team with claude my mind immediately went to like 5 ikes and 2 gotohs

Surprised Ninja Hana being the Water Season Chrom Killer want mentioned

Those same super prf units are starting to get refines, so it'll be interesting to see how they balance it (or don't balance it.) And it's interesting to think about which non-weapon prfs have equivalents to make room for attuned skills on older special units. I almost swapped bector's A skill for a generic counter so he could run echo guard. Only thing that stopped me was an even better candidate I initially overlooked.

I stopped playing four years ago. Are PRF weapon descriptions as long as the US Constitution yet?

Spring Camilla mention OwO

I'd argue the game was more fun when it was simpler. These days, whether i win or lose a fight has no strategy involved at all

Yeah Marcia is great

i gave my +10 temari tethys ploy 4. i dont know why i did this, she kinda still works but her never getting a refine hurts

Uff Imstill remember the reinhard calvary meta

Henry clears

I miss the day that Lyn swept all of my flying unit team

The obscene power of recent PRF weapons, specials and skills has definitely forced non-premium character archetypes and builds out of relevance. Nowadays it's either slap on an Arcane weapon with recent tier 4 skills that fit a 4 star demote character's stat line or use the recent damage before combat Red Tome and Axe and call it a day. And also, many old refines are just horrendously outdated by the aforementioned obscene PRF weapon, special and skills. I think one of the few archetypes that you could feasibly make stand out are dancers and maybe armors??? I'm honestly not sure if it's even possible since you'd just be slapping Rearmed Plumeria's base kit on another min/maxed res dancer because they might have either around the same Res stat or more at max merges and dragon flowers and resplendent stats and summoner support. If you're lucky. And armors don't have a good time now thanks to damage before combat. Summoner Duels definitely highlight this lack of player expression. The current best teams generally use Duo Lyon and any enablers, a Rearmed Plumeria type dancer, and some AoE user that completely chunks the enemy team like Harmonized Igrene. If you don't use similar characters and Duo Lyon you're just not going to have a good time.

Comparing gacha limiteds with f2p 4*s. How quaint.

Effie's attack stat is so silly Resp, +10 merge, +25 flowers, +atk, +atk refine, +10 engage, +summoner support 76 attack Winter Edie w/ the same max boosts? 78 attack 😭

I still didn't get why everyone was obsessive with making a Dancer Eldigan build.

the good old times when the game was still simple.

Valentine's Faye carried me through this game from 2020 til 6 months ago... RIP baby girl

At first, I thought this was an April Fools joke, until I saw the 'history' part. I miss the simple times 🥲